Football: My AI System Provides Max-Level Predictions
Chapter 187 - 158: Totti Throws a Bottle in Anger! That Damned Chinese Kid Got Past Him Again!

Chapter 187: Chapter 158: Totti Throws a Bottle in Anger! That Damned Chinese Kid Got Past Him Again!

Came back!

Finally came back!

The Meazza stadium erupted with cheers from eighty thousand fans like a raging sea!

"Ahhhhh——"

Cheers for the Swiss youngster Shaqiri who scored!

Even more for the Chinese prodigy Tang Long who delivered the killer assist!

From conceding the first goal just minutes into the start to now, the fans have waited too long!

"Inter Milan finally equalized the score!"

"We missed Tang Long’s presence so much, his divine kick assist, that swift football racing across the field!"

"Tang Long was invisible for a full forty minutes, I believe many viewers, like me, almost forgot his presence!"

"Not that he didn’t make a move, just that the timing wasn’t right, but now, the time is here!"

"Inter’s retreat was actually a form of advancing, and now we see, they never gave up, but were seeking the right opportunity all along!"

Off the field, Mancini turned around, giving three strong punches to the chanting fans behind him!

Bang bang bang!

Fists as large as sandbags cut through the air with a whoosh.

Mancini was under enormous pressure!

At this moment, it finally got released.

To know, since his return to Inter for the second time, he has never faced the collective boos from the Meazza fans at home.

Perhaps television viewers could not feel it through the screen.

But actually experiencing it on-site, standing there, surrounded by eighty thousand dense fans wrapping around you.

Without tracks, the professional soccer grounds have excellent acoustics.

Can you bear eighty thousand people booing at you?

Mancini’s head buzzed continually, eardrums vibrating, he couldn’t even hear his own voice when yelling instructions to the players, let alone ensure if the players heard him.

But as the head coach, you can’t control the fans.

Nor can you instill your defensive counter-attack strategy of retreat as advance into the fans’ minds—We did not give up at all, just wait and see!

The only thing Inter could do was to genuinely equalize the score like just now!

Tang Long’s assist comforted Mancini immensely.

If Totti’s departure made this 460 no-striker formation of Rome lose its core and eventually disrupt due to excessive running.

Then, Inter Milan is different!

Tang Long was always on the field; their core is right here!

In the visiting team’s locker room, Totti sat sulking alone on a chair.

Damn it, me, the dignified Wolf King of Rome, being benched for half a season, whatever.

After all, retiring soon, doesn’t matter.

The frustration lies in this Inter Milan’s Berni!

You brat, a 31-year-old keeper, still damn a third-string, who the hell do you think you are, sticking a scallion in a pig’s nose, pretending to be an elephant, to dare contend with me, the Prince of Rome?

In the 90s, when I was playing in Serie A, you were still playing in the mud!

At that moment, Totti felt a vibration under his feet, followed by the roaring sound from Inter’s fans!

Totti knew this roar all too well, only Italy’s largest stadium capable of holding eighty thousand fans could produce this kind of roar, Inter scored!

Subsequently, the fans loudly calling Tang Long’s name made Totti angrily smash the water bottle in his hand to the ground, splashing water all over his face.

"It’s him again!"

"It’s that abominable Chinese kid again!"

"Why can we never stop him, so infuriating, ahhh~"

During halftime, when Rome’s players returned to the locker room and saw Totti’s gloomy face, their mood also plummeted to rock bottom.

Nothing is more depressing than being equalized by the opponent just before halftime ends.

However, the more discouraging things awaited in the second half.

Rome’s head coach Rudy Garcia hadn’t prepared any backup plans at all!

This French coach started his career in his homeland Ligue 1, and before arriving in Rome, he led Lille to break Lyon’s monopoly, winning the 2010-2011 Ligue 1 title.

However, Garcia is a one-time deal coach, able to win Ligue 1 partly because the standard was genuinely low, at one point surpassed by the Portuguese league in European competition points, jokingly said to have been removed from the top five leagues.

Additionally, Rudy Garcia’s tactics heavily relied on young, energetic black players.

At one point, Lille was full of those strong, powerful players, playing with a stimulating, bulldozing style.

After coming to Serie A, Garcia reused his old tactics, with a no-striker 460 in this match, temporarily suppressing Inter, initially taking the lead in the away game, triggering Inter fans to boo the home team, relying on the tireless running of three black forwards in the front line.

Rudy Garcia once felt quite proud, thinking that after the 0-4 humiliation in the first leg, he could finally win back at Meazza, achieve a beautiful comeback!

But unexpected was that despite outpressing Inter for the whole first half, not only did they fail to expand the lead, they got equalized by the opponent in the last minutes of the first half.

What will happen in the second half, Rome’s head coach felt rather uncertain!

"Boys, that conceded goal doesn’t matter, relax," he started to comfort his disciples, "De Rossi almost intercepted Tang’s pass, just a tiny bit slow, right De Rossi, if you’d broken that, there would have been no problem, it was purely a lucky goal."

De Rossi was drinking water with his head down, hearing his name being mentioned by the coach, slowly raised his head.

This vice-captain of Rome’s eyes were full of confusion.

Luck?

That ball wasn’t Tang Long’s luck, was it!

At that speed along the sideline, even if I risk my 32-year-old life, throwing my whole body into a sliding tackle, I couldn’t reach the ball.

Moreover, De Rossi was originally a defensive midfielder, he knew that Tang Long’s move, from the initial sudden diagonal interception on Gervinho, to the high-speed long pass along the sideline, finally linking with winger forward Shaqiri, this series of actions, how difficult it was to execute!

Anyway, 32-year-old De Rossi, a lifelong serviceman in Rome, from youth team to first team, to the main defensive midfielder for Italy’s national team.

To say he could execute this series of actions, even if he were ten years younger, he couldn’t pull it off!

"Keep playing, keep going!"

"Keep strengthening the pressing upfront, run harder!"

"Charge them to death like the first goal!"

"Strengthen the breakthrough on the flanks, Gervinho, weren’t you good at breakthrough, keep it up, in the first half you got past Tang clean!"

"Iturbe, just run into their center backs and harass them hard!"

"Nangland, you need to run more, your position is very important... uh, where’s Nangland?"

Garcia looked around, not seeing Belgian midfielder Nangland.

"Oh, calling me? Coming, just finishing this smoke."

A slightly lazy voice drifted from the dark corner behind the locker area.

Old smoker Nangland, couldn’t help sneaking a puff during the halftime break.

His figure slowly emerged from the edge of the locker, half-exposed to the light.

A cigarette dangled from his mouth, eyes slightly squinting, seemingly lost within his little world, indifferent to the outside.

Rome captain Totti witnessed this ridiculous yet somewhat helpless scene, the corner of his mouth curled into a cold smile.

The smile initially carried a tinge of sarcasm but gradually softened, eventually turning into a slight sigh, dissipating into the air.

"Ah..."

His thoughts involuntarily drifted back ten years.

Back then, Rome was dominant in Serie A, firmly holding the second place, with everyone anticipating their rise.

Now, ten years have passed in a blink, Rome still remains in this familiar yet awkward spot.

But now, whether in team fighting strength or locker room cohesion, Rome is far from the team it was ten years ago.

39-year-old Totti looked at 32-year-old De Rossi, drenched in sweat, still strenuously holding on.

When will Rome’s next Serie A champion come? Anyway, I won’t see it in my career.

At this moment, Totti felt an indescribable impulse, almost wanting to reach out to Nangland for a cigarette, to bury his head in the smoke...

(Until his retirement at 41, Totti never won another league title for Rome)